ad their
boats to the gunwales with fat green turtle, turtle eggs, robber crabs,
and sea-birds' eggs. From that time the place became well known to the
three or four hundred of sperm whalers engaged in the fishery, and,
later on, to the shark-catching vessels from the Hawaiian Islands.
Then, sixteen years ago, Christmas Island was taken up by a London firm
engaged in the South Sea Island trade under a lease from the Colonial
Office; this firm at once sent there a number of native labourers from
Manhiki, an island in the South Pacific. These, under the charge of
a white man, were set to work planting coco-nuts and diving for pearl
shell in the lagoon. At the present time, despite one or two severe
droughts, the coco-nut plantations are thriving, and the lessees should
in another few years reap their reward, and hold one of the richest
possessions in the South Seas.

The island is of considerable extent, and though on the windward or
eastern side its appearance is uninviting in the extreme, and the fierce
oceanic currents that for ever sweep in mighty eddies around its shores
render approach to it difficult and sometimes dangerous, it has yet
afforded succour to many an exhausted and sea-worn shipwrecked crew who
have reached it in boats. And, on the other hand, several fine ships,
sailing quietly along at night time, unaware of the great ocean currents
that are focussed about the terrible reefs encompassing the island, have
crashed upon the jagged coral barrier and been smashed to pieces by the
violence of the surf.

Scarcely discernible, from its extreme lowness, at a distance of more
than eight miles from the ship's deck, its presence is made known hours
before it is sighted by vast clouds of amphibious birds, most of which
all day long hover about the sea in its vicinity, and return to their
rookeries on the island at sunset. On one occasion, when the vessel in
which I was then serving was quite twenty miles from the land, we were
unable to hear ourselves speak, when, just before it became dark, the
air was filled with the clamour of countless thousands of birds of
aquatic habits that flew in and about our schooner's rigging. Some
of these were what whalemen call 'shoal birds,' 'wide-awakes,'
'molly-hawks,' 'whale birds' and 'mutton birds.' Among them were some
hundreds of frigate birds, the _katafa_ of the Ellice Islanders, and a
few magnificently plum-aged fishers, called _kanapu_ by the natives of
Equatorial Poly